


Driving Circles

by Shaitanah



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-22
Updated: 2011-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaitanah/pseuds/Shaitanah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik hates Charles. Honestly, he does. Telepathic foreplay ensues. [post-movie]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Driving Circles

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: X-Men: First Class belongs to Marvel Entertainment et al. Title from “Your Ghost” by Greg Laswell.  
> Dedication: for e.nara

Charles Xavier is a cruel man. In fact, he is the cruelest man Erik has ever known, and Erik could write a thesis on the subject.

 

But the thing is, after you have declared yourself somebody’s enemy (because if the whole _we want the same thing – we do not_ on the beach was not that kind of a declaration, Erik doesn’t know what is), you do not, oh, you absolutely do not go poking around his mind for whatever obscurely moral reasons … unless you are Charles bloody Xavier, that is.

 

Erik wouldn’t have even noticed, but contrary to popular opinion, he does not sleep in the helmet. At least he did not until Charles began to resurface in his dreams. Erik suspected it was not even a conscious effort on Charles’s part. Perhaps his sessions with Cerebro coincided with Erik’s erratic bedtime hours. Perhaps Charles was just testing his limits. Be that as it may, Charles was there, once again accommodating himself in Erik’s head (hadn’t he always felt right at home there, the sodding masochist?) without asking permission–

 

Since then, Erik sleeps with his helmet on.

 

These dreams were like snippets of memory. The two of them playing chess, talking, Charles smiling that maddeningly serene smile of his. Erik can still see them. They do not require any inducement from Charles. They patter about in his insular mind, trapped by the helmet that will not let anything else in or out, and bit by bit these nights of torment become the time of day that Erik almost-but-not-quite looks forward to.

 

* * *

 

Erik busies himself with attacking military bases and stealing nuclear warheads because the world has to see what it’s up against. And Erik has to escape these constant thoughts about Charles. It’s all Charles’s fault anyway. Charles showed him he was not alone. Charles gave him this new cause.

 

He takes the helmet off once, and listens. Waits for the familiar probing brush of Charles’s mind against his. There comes nothing.

 

* * *

 

Perhaps they could fight. It is the only type of intimacy they have at their disposal now.

 

But Charles denies him even that. His kids resurface here and there, sometimes they even clash with Erik’s lot, but Charles himself is obviously too busy doing the professor things in the confinement of his posh mansion. Of course he is there. Where else would he be?

 

That knowledge gives Erik nothing. He will not go in, and Charles will not come out. And that’s that.

 

* * *

 

It is Emma who tells him _why_. There is unrestrained malice in her tone when she delivers the news. These are Chinese whispers collected from a chain of umbrageous minds that brim with such intense antipathy that it could almost be classified as hate. Except they are the good guys. They don’t deal in shades of grey. They do not _hate_. They cannot afford the luxury.

 

Erik, on the other hand, can. He tears off the helmet and commands Emma to thrust the images into his mind. After a moment of doubt, she complies.

 

Those are the memories from the beach, moments after he left. They are tarnished by the kids’ seething emotions, but Erik wants them that way. He wants it to hurt. He wants Charles’s escalating chants of _I can’t feel my legs_ etched into his mind–

 

And then it’s all rage because he has left his serenity with Charles.

 

* * *

 

 _charlescharlescharlescharles_

 

Erik hates what this name does to him. He hates it even more when he realizes that the voice that keeps repeating it in his head is his own.

 

* * *

 

 _Erik? I can hear your thoughts, you know._

 

“Is it not the whole point?” he mutters under his breath.

 

Charles chuckles in his mind, a velveteen sound, very polite. _Your other thoughts. Those that are not worded._

 

Erik should probably have an entire environmental suit made out of the same material as his helmet.

 

* * *

 

Charles talks a lot. In fact, he probably doesn’t shut up at all. Ever. Every time Erik removes the helmet, he is there. Sometimes it is at a distance; at other times his voice is criminally close for Erik to ignore; and yet, he does, ever so skillfully. If Xavier expects an apology, he might have to wait for a long time.

 

* * *

 

 _Why didn’t you tell me?_ Erik asks.

 

Charles’s silence is worth a thousand words. Isn’t it obvious? he doesn’t ask, but Erik can still hear it.

 

 _Better yet,_ Erik says, _why don’t you do something about it?_

 

Charles laughs. It’s the first time since forever, genuine laughter. Erik shuts his eyes and lets it pass through.

 

 _It’s too bad I’m not made of metal. Otherwise you could fix me._

 

Since I broke you, Erik thinks, but not exactly. With Charles, one has to master the intricate art of thinking so deep that Charles cannot catch it, not if he just skirts the edges.

 

 _We can, you know,_ he suggests tentatively, _meet. Play a game of chess perhaps?_ (The worst part is, he is only half-joking.)

 

 _I’m looking forward to it,_ Charles says, amiably. _But I want to play Erik. Not Magneto._

 

* * *

 

Erik hates Charles. Honestly, he does. No, really. That’s what enemies do when they’re not too busy conversing telepathically with each other or thinking about each other or wondering (mind you, very briefly, and that is a completely regret-free zone) how things would have turned out if they had chosen another course of action at some point.

 

* * *

 

 _Magneto wasn’t my idea, you know._ He doesn’t say, ‘I want you to accept Magneto like you accepted Erik,’ because in all likelihood, Charles will not. Erik isn’t even sure he really wants him too. Needs, maybe. But not wants.

 

 _How are your people?_ Charles doesn’t ask about Raven; that would be a violation of their unspoken agreement.

 

 _Got their asses kicked by your people._

 

Charles laughs. _I am so… not really sorry._ He falls silent for a moment. _One of these days we shall have to stop this._

 

Erik says, _Yes_ , and doesn’t mention the fact that it is Charles who greets him with a _knock-knock_ every now and then, pushing the rest of the world to the outskirts of the universe.

 

 _You used to have a much better fashion sense,_ Charles comments after a prolonged pause. It is probably his polite way of saying that yes, he sort of hates Erik a little too.

 

* * *

 

They might end up turning into a couple of comic book geezers who fight each other into a coma and then struggle to drag each other back out, alternating it with long philosophical conversations about ways and means and the flaws of human nature.

 

 _It’s like foreplay,_ Erik jokes once.

 

Charles mulls it over. _You’re right. We should meet._

 

When we’ve mastered the art of rope-walking enough to balance all our disagreements and all our hurt over the abyss, is what they leave unsaid.

 

* * *

 

“All this time,” Erik chuckles, “and you still use a metallic wheelchair.”

 

“All this time,” Charles responds in kind, “and you still haven’t used it against me.”

 

 

 _June 19–21, 2011_


End file.
